


we let our battles choose us

by isthislove



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Explicit Language, Louis isn't really in it that much, M/M, Missing Persons, Mostly just sad, Oh and no smut so, You've been warned, harry!centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 00:03:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1074627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isthislove/pseuds/isthislove
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Harry is always the last one, the final person Louis says farewell to on the rare occasion that one doesn't follow the other.</i>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>  <i>“Bye, Lou,” Harry murmurs one more time as he wraps his arms around Louis, far gentler this time. </i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>Louis pushes Harry away within seconds, but only to reach up and press a hard kiss against his lips. He's grinning when he steps back, the little crinkles around his eyes making an appearance. Harry has never loved anyone the way he loves Louis, and his young, naïve brain makes him think that he never will.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>There's finally a note of genuine ruefulness in Louis' voice when he says, “I'll miss you.”</i></p><p> </p><p>Louis flies off to Australia and nobody knows where he's gone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we let our battles choose us

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this. I really have nothing to say about it?? Enjoy.
> 
> Disclaimer: Obviously untrue, basically they're all fictional characters, and don't spread it around, etc. etc.

  
_There's a humming in the restless summer air_   
_And we're slipping off the course that we prepared_   
_But in all chaos, there is calculation_   
_Dropping glasses just to hear them break_   
_You've been drinking like the world was gonna end (it didn't)_   
_Took a shiner from the fist of your best friend (go figure)_   
_It's clear that someone's gotta go_   
_We mean it but I promise we're not mean._   


\----------------------------------------------------------

“Just because I'm leaving doesn't mean I'll be gone forever.”

Louis' laugh is too light, his tone too cavalier. Harry wants to throttle him or – better yet – snog him until he persuades Louis to stay. He thinks that given enough time, he'd be able to pull it off. His lips have managed to convince Louis to do many things in the past. Maybe it'd work this time, too. 

But all of that is just tired, thin hope and he knows that he needs to stop waiting for decisions that will never be made. Basically, he needs to stop _wishing_. He's never been one to just give up that easily on anything and it makes him ache to do so, especially when it comes to Louis.

“Hey, smile for me,” Louis says with a sympathetic tilt of the mouth that still looks a little mocking somehow. He reaches out to brush a stray curl off Harry's forehead. “You look so lovely when you smile.”

*****

They've known each other for ages. They grew up together.

Louis was the one who taught Harry all of the useful life lessons that his mum didn't; he taught him how to sneak sweets before dinner, how to evade the bullies on the playground, how to lie effectively to grown-ups, how to get alcohol illegally, how to smoke weed without coughing up a lung, how to charm – no, _manipulate_ \- people with just a bat of his lashes. The list goes on and on. Every day with Louis has been memorable in its own way.

If asked, Harry will say that he's never taken his best friend – _the love of his life_ – for granted.

But that's a lie, of course.

*****

At the airport, Harry holds onto Louis so tightly that he feels the breath get stuck in Louis' lungs and his body go rigid with discomfort. But Louis says nothing, just lets Harry eke out every last trace of comfort he can while there's still the opportunity. Around them, the other boys are hovering patiently as they wait for their turns to say good-bye. Somewhere farther back is Louis' family.

“There're so many scary things in Australia,” Harry mumbles into Louis' hair. “They've got a bird that kills people. _Kills people_.”

Louis laughs, again with that maddening nonchalance. He thinks he's invincible, thinks that nothing will affect him unless he allows it to. It's been that way since … forever, probably, since the day he was conceived. It is simultaneously admirable and terrifying. Harry's never been able to figure out whether he should be concerned about Louis' well-being all the time or be reassured by the fact that Louis' confident in his own survival.

“Every country has things that kill people, Haz,” Louis says, finally tearing himself away. “That's the adventure, right?”

From beside them, Niall chirps, “Everyone says that, then they get their leg ripped off by a shark.”

Harry whips around and levels a bewildered look at his friend. “What the fuck, Niall?”

Louis barks out a laugh as he bends down to grab his carry-on bag. He slings it over his shoulder and Harry's momentarily rendered useless as he eyes the flex of Louis' biceps and the taut, tan skin over the muscle. He wishes they had more time. He wishes they were still at home, spooning on their disheveled bed with the stereo playing softly in the background while they berate themselves for being such clichés. 

He has got to _stop wishing_.

“Alright, I've got to go through security now or I'll miss my flight. The line is insane,” Louis says, turning his head to look at the other travelers all trying to get through the harrowing experience of metal detectors and pat downs. 

Harry stands back and just watches, hands shoved in his pockets, as the other boys throw their arms around Louis and shout out dramatic announcements of their love for him. As soon as he detangles himself from the mass of limbs, Louis goes over to his family and hugs and kisses each one of them with a fond smile on his face. Then he retraces his steps back to Harry. Harry is always the last one, the final person Louis says farewell to on the rare occasion that one doesn't follow the other.

“Bye, Lou,” Harry murmurs one more time as he wraps his arms around Louis, far gentler this time. 

Louis pushes Harry away within seconds, but only to reach up and press a hard kiss against his lips. He's grinning when he steps back, the little crinkles around his eyes making an appearance. Harry has never loved anyone the way he loves Louis, and his young, naïve brain makes him think that he never will.

There's finally a note of genuine ruefulness in Louis' voice when he says, “I'll miss you.”

*****

Uni – no, life - is boring without Louis, Harry thinks for the billionth time as he sits in his statistics lecture.

It's only the third week of the new term but he's already counting down the days until Louis comes back home. Which is really quite a pointless endeavor, seeing as Louis' visa lasts for a year and he'd never set a return date before leaving. He could be gone for the entire year if he wants to. And he just might, because that's Louis Tomlinson for you.

Liam elbows him in the ribs, gives him a look that he can't misinterpret. _Get yourself together, Harry. This isn't the end of the world._ But what does Liam know? He's missing a best mate, too, but Harry's missing a best mate _and_ a boyfriend (and he sort of hates the fact that he and Louis had finally decided to take that huge step a _month_ before Louis graduated uni and made the decision to fly off to another continent).

When Harry gets home that evening, he's reminded that 'home' is no longer his and Louis' flat. It's his and Zayn's now. Zayn's totally moved into the second bedroom, the one that was technically Louis' but was always left unoccupied. Harry had tried to convince Louis that he'd be okay living on his own during Louis' absence, but Louis knows certain things about Harry that Harry tries his best to hide, and his aversion to being alone is one of those things. So Louis had asked Zayn to move in and he'd said yes.

“Hey, Haz.” Zayn appears out of nowhere, leaning against the kitchen door as Harry starts rifling through the fridge. “You alright?”

“Yeah, of course,” Harry replies automatically, squinting as he looks past bottles of beer and a ridiculous amount of condiments. It's a war zone in there. He doesn't want to know what's in the container in the far right corner. Probably something Louis forgot about and left for Harry to clean up. “You?”

“Good,” Zayn says as he walks across the room toward the sink, feline-like in the way he moves noiselessly across the floor. “Liam says you've been distracted in class.”

Harry groans and closes the fridge door a little harder than necessary. “You and Liam have got to stop gossiping.”

“Not gossiping,” Zayn replies pleasantly as he soaps up his hands for no discernible reason. “Just worried about you.”

“Well, stop.” 

“Can't.”

And Zayn can be almost as frustrating as Louis, Harry thinks, but in a completely different way. Louis is obnoxious and difficult to deal with when his voice becomes too loud and he gets too messy, but Zayn's the hardest to handle when he smiles that neutral, unreadable smile of his and says _nothing_ even when he says _something_. 

“Can you blame me?” Harry asks sharply, brow furrowed. “I miss him, okay? He's only been gone for a few days. I think I can be forgiven for being in a bit of a mood.”

“It's been a couple of weeks, actually.” Zayn rubs his wet hands against his jean-clad thighs but keeps his eyes on Harry. “He hasn't gone away forever.”

And Harry hates that, hates it when people say that even though someone's left they're not 'gone forever'. Maybe Zayn and Liam and Louis don't understand why he's acting this way, but there's just this _feeling_ niggling under his skin and he can't seem to rest with it there. This is the longest time they'll be apart and it feels wrong. 

“Louis is independent,” Zayn continues. “Free bird and all that.”

“Yeah, and it's shit,” Harry mutters, yanking a bag of bread out of the cupboard. 

Zayn chuckles as he leaves the room and says, “You chose to let him into your life, you idiot.”

*****

Louis calls for the first time a few days later.

He's either blissfully ignorant of the time difference or just plain rude, because he wakes Harry up at three in the morning. The only reason Harry picks up at all is because Louis has his own special ringtone and he's been conditioned to answer the phone whenever it begins playing.

“Haz!” 

Louis sounds so excited, so cheerful that Harry can't help but feel awake almost immediately. He pulls himself up into a sitting position and leans against his pillows (well, they're Louis', really, since he's the one who insists on having at least six pillows on the bed at all times). 

“Hi, Lou.”

“Were you asleep?” Louis' voice is impish, which means he knows exactly how the time zones work. 

“Yeah, you wanker,” Harry retorts, but without much feeling behind it. “How're you? How's the Land Down Under?”

Louis laughs. “It's beautiful. Hot, but beautiful. Everyone's really friendly, always taking the piss out of each other. Not as mean as us Brits.”

Harry bites down on a smile as he imagines Louis basking in turquoise ocean and dazzling sunshine, surrounded by gorgeous blonde people as tanned as him. As much as it hurts to admit it, maybe Australia is a more suitable place for someone like Louis than dreary England. 

“Yeah? Are all Australian men as attractive as Hugh Jackman?” 

“Christ, Haz,” Louis says, sounding genuinely put out. “We've gone over this. Hugh Jackman has nothing on the Hemsworth brothers. You and your fascination with older people.”

“Yep, that's why I'm with you. The two year difference really gets me hot and bothered.” 

Harry sinks down until he's reclining at a 45 degree angle and looking up at the shadowy ceiling. There's a decent-sized dent right above his head where Louis had flung a textbook too hard in frustration one night and it'd connected with the ceiling. He can still remember the sheepish smile Louis'd had on his face as powdery white plaster snowed down onto them.

“How're my other boys?” Louis asks, and there's that tenderness in his voice that makes Harry's insides twist. “They doing okay without me?”

“Better than I am.” Harry feels it's necessary to point out. “But yeah, they miss you. I've already caught Liam Googling 'how to survive poisonous spider bites' and 'the most dangerous places to go swimming in Australia' twice. Every time Niall comes over he yells hello to both of us before he remembers you're not here, which makes me sad but also makes me worry for the state of his memory. And you know Zayn.”

“Worries about the rest of you, but never shows how he feels?” Louis guesses. 

Zayn is first and foremost Louis', if only because Louis had been the one to approach Zayn back when they were fourteen and Zayn was new to their school. Zayn's loyalties will always lie with Louis but because Harry is number one in Louis' life, he's also a top priority in Zayn's. It's the only reason Harry had eventually accepted him; if he'd tried taking Louis away, Harry never would've grown to like him, let alone love him. Then there are Liam and Niall, who are safely on neutral ground, having fell into their lives by pure chance and not by either Harry or Louis forcing them in. 

“Give him a hug and a kiss for me. But not on the lips.”

Harry can just imagine Louis waggling his finger at him in warning. 

“Why not? He's fit. You're best mates, he can just step in for you while you're gone.”

Louis grumbles but Harry knows he's only amused. They've gotten past the petty jealousy and the insecurity and the treacherous possessiveness that destroy many other relationships. Louis would never betray Harry and Harry would never betray Louis. They know it and anyone who knows them well know it. They're _that_ couple at the party, socializing on different sides of the room, diplomatically sidestepping flirtatious strangers as they communicate with each other through eye contact. It's that simple. They don't try to make a game out of their relationship.

“Babe, I've got to go,” Louis says after they cover a few more important topics of conversation. “But I'll call in two weeks, okay? And check your Facebook. You're bad about that.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Harry says, the reality of the distance between them setting in again. “I love you.”

“Love you, too. Take care of yourself and the boys for me,” Louis says, then he hangs up.

*****

It's during times like these that Harry really wishes Louis wasn't in fucking Australia.

He's sitting in the waiting room of the A&E, hunched forward with his head in his hands, trembling. He can hear Liam pleading with the desk attendant for any scrap of information but she's resolute, just looking at him with closed-off eyes as he chatters on. Niall's still on his way, texting Harry nonsensical, pointless messages every other minute. Harry thinks Niall might be trying to distract him from the situation at hand. It's not really working.

“Please, we're his best mates, we just want to -”

“I don't know any more than you do,” the attendant says, sounding robotic and rehearsed. Maybe she has a cue back there, taped to her desktop. “You need to wait until a doctor comes to speak with you. For now, I suggest you contact his family so they can get here as soon as possible.”

The mention of family is enough to shake Liam off. He comes back over to Harry and sits down heavily in the chair next to him. Harry keeps staring at the ground as Liam fumbles around in his pocket. Harry can't deal with Zayn's mum right now, even though he should be handling this, seeing as he's Zayn's emergency contact while Louis' gone. A few seconds later, he hears the tinny ring of a phone call being made. Seconds later, a feminine voice answers on the other end. Harry shuts his eyes tightly but the loss of one sense only makes his hearing more acute.

“Hi, it's Liam.” His voice is weak and close to fading out with fear. “I'm – no, it's … it's Zayn. He's in the hospital right now. We don't know what's going on.”

*****

Harry knows that Louis would be furious with him for letting his best mate get hurt.

Zayn is Louis' pet, the person Louis worries about most. He has a strange conviction in the guarantee of Harry's safety, like he knows something that nobody else does. Like he's made an arrangement with some supernatural being so that Harry will never get hurt. But Zayn … that's a different story. It's an unspoken understanding that in Louis' absence, Harry's expected to keep an eye on Zayn. Because despite his outward self-assuredness and tendency to do things alone, there's a fragility to Zayn that Louis saw the moment he first laid eyes on him in their year ten maths class. 

It was an accident, according to Zayn, who blinks up at his friends and family through fogged eyes as he lies prone in his hospital bed. He has a gash on his forehead that's stitched up by invisible thread and hidden under white wrapping, the skin neatly brought together. It'll leave a nasty scar, but that's a scratch compared to the concussion. Zayn keeps saying it was an accident but later on Harry will find out that the man who'd been driving the cab Zayn was in had gone through a red light when they'd been side swept by another vehicle. The only reason Zayn had been in the cab in the first place was because nobody – not Niall, not Liam, not Harry – had picked up their phones when he'd called them all around midnight, drunk and needing a ride home.

Louis would've been there. He would've woken up and taken the call.

*****

Harry tries to call Louis the next day, having finally mustered up enough courage to do so, but he gets Louis' chirpy voicemail every time. All five times. He checks his Facebook as a last ditch effort, and there it is, the red bubble notification telling him he has one message. He clicks it, half-excited and half-apprehensive. He knows before the page opens that the message is from Louis. It could say anything.

_Hey, babe! Hope all is well with you. This isn't going to be very long but I just wanted to let you know that some mates and I are going to be walking the Great Ocean Road for a few days, and so I'm turning my phone off. I'll call you as soon as I can. Love you!_

Harry shuts his laptop and slumps back against the couch, closing his eyes tightly. He's not surprised, shouldn't be. Louis has never fully understood the concept of responsibility. Sure, he knows what it means to take care of the people he loves, to do well academically, to get a job that will support him, and all that. But when it comes to the smaller choices that he faces on a daily basis, Louis is too apt to make up his mind too quickly, thinking that his decision won't make much of an impact in the bigger scheme of things.

Harry misses him so much, misses him to the point that he can barely stand being in their flat alone. Even when Zayn's around he feels unsatisfied, like he's just holding his breath and waiting for Louis to come back. Essentially, that's what he's doing, really. Just waiting. He feels uncomfortable all the time, on pins and needles, unsettled. He thinks that he should feel ashamed of himself but he can't because it wouldn't make sense _not_ to miss Louis this much.

*****

A week passes by and still nothing.

He looks up the Great Ocean Road and spends far too much time researching how long it takes the average person to walk it. It varies, depending on whether people walk and camp the entire thing or drive it, and Harry can never find a good answer. He knows that Louis' probably alright and just having fun with his mates, but the feeling of unease that had settled under Harry's skin the moment Louis disappeared from his sight at the airport is still there, thumping along with his heartbeat like a reminder. He wants to voice his concern to everyone close to him, but he doesn't want to come off as mad, unhinged by Louis' absence. He has _some_ self-pride. 

On a Friday night, during a moment of weakness, he agrees to go to a party being thrown by one of Zayn's artsy friends. Everyone's still treating Zatn like he might collapse at any moment, but he'd begged them to just lay off for one night so they could all have fun together. Liam had tried his best to shut down the entire plan with his best reasoning skills, but Zayn hadn't fallen for it because if anyone's immune to Liam's sweetness it's Zayn. But nobody can blame Liam for thinking it a bad idea. Harry never stops worrying, himself. That's all he does nowadays, anyway, so it doesn't take much effort on his part. 

The four of them drive over, Harry having promised to be the DD at the end of the night. He'd flip-flopped for several minutes before making the decision; getting properly drunk sounded lovely and mind-numbing, but also a very good way of turning himself into a weeping mess a couple hours in. So as the rest of the boys chug down beers and grimace their way through shots of mediocre rum, Harry stands around conversing with people he knows and doesn't know. 

He's always been quite talented at small talk, a commonality between him and Louis that's just one more glowing asset to their relationship. The two of them can chatter away with anyone and everyone about anything, both smiling widely as if the conversation is the best they've had all night. People love them for it, it's strange.

At the end of the night, the other three have enough control over their motor skills to walk out to the car and get in themselves without any assistance. Zayn promptly succumbs to sleep while Niall struggles against it, his eyes drifting open and closed. Harry drives as promised, the weight of Liam's silence in the passenger seat beside him. It's only a fifteen minute drive but within five minutes Harry breaks under the pressure.

“You've got something to say,” he blurts out, a statement rather than a question.

Liam sighs. “You've got to stop worrying about Lou. He's okay.”

And of course it's about Louis because present or not, he dominates so much of their lives.

“I haven't heard from him in almost two weeks,” Harry retorts. “That's not right.”

“Just relax, Haz,” Liam mumbles, letting his temple press against the window. “He'll call soon, I'm sure.”

*****

But Louis never calls, though his mum does.

She calls him three weeks after Louis' Facebook message and it's obvious that they're both at their wit's end, nerves frazzled by badly contained concern. If anybody is Harry's kindred spirit in this whole ordeal, it's Jay.

“I think we need to contact the authorities,” she says, voice shaking. “Louis' not always very good about these things, but he wouldn't let us worry like this.”

It takes Harry several seconds to answer because it feels like his windpipe has constricted too tightly to allow him to speak. He wants to believe that none of this is real, that his phone will beep with a call on another line, and that it'll be Louis. He'll have a story to tell Harry, some overdramatized tale about how he had to fight for survival against a spider the size of a telephone booth. But that doesn't happen, of course. 

“Okay, yeah,” he chokes out. “Who should we call?”

*****

Nobody knows where he is.

He'd been traveling with a group of four American blokes but they'd lost him at some club in Melbourne, after they'd made a loop of the Great Ocean Road. One moment he'd been at the bar drinking a rum and coke with them and the next he was gone. Just like that. Vanished. Nobody had been bothering him, the men told the police, and they hadn't noticed anybody suspicious. But, they'd admitted, they'd been several drinks in and their memory might not be crystal clear.

After Harry hears the news his concern morphs from an internal festering that scrapes at his insides to an intense, messy trepidation that he can't hide any longer. At least three times a day Zayn has to calm him down, tell him to take a deep breath and that he can't just up and fly off to Australia on a whim. Harry tries to listen to the advice at first but after a week he drops any pretense of conformity and blatantly disregards everything anybody tries to tell him.

He's always been a hedonistic person, he knows, but he's never forsaken his loved ones in his pursuit for personal gratification.

Now, he's not quite sure if he has room left in him to care about anybody else.

*****

Harry lies awake most nights now, one arm outstretched and palm flat against the vacant side of the mattress. He likes thinking about when they were young, no longer stumbling around each other in childish curiosity but still in fresh awe of each other. Well, awe on Harry's part, anyway. He'd always gotten the impression that Louis was never really reverent of anyone. Not because he thought himself superior to others but because to him, the concept of idolatry had never made sense.

_“Why worship anything or anyone? What's the point to it?”_

_“It shows that you love someone or something, Lou. A lot.”_

_“The only thing you should love that much is yourself, yeah? Worshipping someone else isn't love. It's fake and it's sad. It's envy or obsession or curiosity or fascination or desperation, but never love.”_

_“So I take it you don't worship me, then?”_

_“Nope, not a bit, my love. Take that as a compliment.”_

*****

“I think maybe we should just let him go.”

“Are you serious? He can't just fuck off to Australia! He has classes and he -”

“ _Liam_ , this is about Lou. Louis. I don't think anyone loves Louis more than Harry does. We can't stop him any longer.”

“This is such an awful idea. He's not going to find anything there. He's not going to find Louis just because he _loves_ him.”

“Maybe not. Probably not. But we just have to let him try before he loses his bloody mind completely.”

Harry hovers outside the door to the kitchen, breath caught in his throat as he listens to Liam and Zayn argue. They think he's still asleep and he _had_ been for several hours, finally knocked out for longer than thirty minutes after an especially tiring day of skipping classes and pacing the flat. He'd eventually been woken up by the beginning of Zayn and Liam's disagreement, startled by the break in the tense silence that had prevailed as of late.

“His mum will never let him go.”

“Anne adores Louis. She'll _pay_ for Harry to go.”

There's a long stretch of silence during which Harry slides down onto the floor. 

“This is just … where the hell is he? How'd he let this happen to himself?”

“You know him, Li. He's reckless.”

“But he'd never do anything to make Harry worry. He knows how Harry gets.”

“Then you know that this is serious! He'd never do anything to scare everyone like this, not on purpose!”

Harry feels himself break apart at Zayn's words, like someone's kicked him right in the stomach and left him gasping for air, unable to find any sure footing and scrambling wildly. The first sobs rip through him, scrape the tender flesh of his throat with their intensity. He covers his face when Zayn and Liam come out into the hall; not so they can't see his face, but so he doesn't have to see the looks on theirs. He doesn't want to see whether they're looking at him with pity or fear or sadness. He's cried before, of course, but never this violently around other people. He's fallen apart many, many times but he's always managed to patch himself up well enough to remain at least mostly stable around others. 

“Harry.”

There's a gentle hand on his shoulder and he curls away from it, cowering toward the wall as if it'll shield him from his surroundings. He knows he looks like a right mess, weeping on the floor with his hands clamped over his face and entire body heaving to catch a breath. But the metaphorical dam has broken and it feels cathartic to cry this way and to let others see it. To see him in the pain that he's felt since the day he'd found out Louis' lack of communication hadn't just been carelessness but something more serious.

“Shit, Zayn, call Niall,” Liam says, and the hand on his shoulder tightens. 

It seems to take several hours when in reality Niall gets there within fifteen minutes. He crouches down next to Harry and pulls him into his arms without a word. Harry doesn't fight it, just goes limp and heaves against Niall's shoulder. They all stay silent as Harry gasps for breath, struggling to fill his lungs with air now that he's no longer preoccupied with crying. There is nothing to say, nothing they can do to set everything right.

*****

Jay eventually decides to go to Melbourne but when she asks Harry to go with her, he says no. She doesn't fight him, just nods and smiles sadly before closing the door behind her. He locks himself in his flat for the next several days and makes it clear that he wants Zayn to stay elsewhere during that time. Louis has been gone for a month now, thirty long days of nothing. No leads, no tips, no traces of anything substantially helpful.

Harry slides out of grief and into numbness. He tries to distance himself from the boys, but especially Zayn. He can no longer stand looking at Zayn, meeting those sad hazel eyes as they study him from across the room. It makes him think of Louis and how charmed he'd been by Zayn from the start, how he'd seen beyond Zayn's withdrawn exterior in a way that not many people ever had or ever would. He feels guilty under Zayn's heavy gaze and that crawls under his skin. He feels like Zayn is expecting him to do something and that he's not fulfilling those expectations.

And of course it's Zayn who finds him at a party one night as he's pressed against the railing of the balcony and drunkenly snogging some stranger with a shocking ferocity. Zayn pulls the guy away from Harry, shoves him as hard as he can back into the flat before turning on Harry. His eyes say it all, tell Harry that he's a failure and a disappointment. Harry wants to blame the alcohol and take the easy way out, but he doesn't even try to defend himself because why the hell should he, all things considered. He just sags against the wall and smiles lopsidedly at Zayn, then shrugs as if to say, 'no big deal'. 

Zayn punches him so hard in the face that he falls backwards into the railing of the balcony and slides down onto his ass. He sort of wishes the railing had given out and let him fall the seven floors to the sidewalk below.

*****

Jay comes back from Australia sunburnt and exhausted with nothing to say. She has no information that they don't know already and it's obvious in the way her shoulders are slumped and her eyes empty. Harry doesn't even bother going to see her at her home; he just lets Liam and Niall fill him in. Zayn's still freezing him out, ghosting in and out of the flat like they're in parallel universes. It should make Harry feel guilty, that fact that he and Zayn have come to this impasse, but he can't bring himself to even expend the energy to care. What he has of it he uses to feed the lead ball of agony that's sunk into his gut like a bullet nobody can extract.

It feels like Jay's fruitless trip to Australia is the end of the situation for now, a point where there's nowhere to go except backward because surely there's no way to move forward. At least, that's how it feels like for Harry. He spends a good chunk of his time when he's not in class (he's finally managed to start going again) sitting in his - _their_ \- bedroom with his laptop open and Louis' Facebook up. He wishes it were more romantic but it's the age of technology and he has to sacrifice the tenderness of handwritten love notes and actual photos for a pixelized, digitalized version of whatever this is. He finds some solace in the posts that inundate Louis' wall, in the snippets of other people's worry and fear and sadness. 

He's reading one post from a uni friend of Louis' - _“I still can't believe it, even though it's been this long. We all just want to see you home safe, Lou!”_ \- when Liam and Niall show up at his flat unannounced. They come in without even waiting to be invited in and wander around the flat until they find him in his bedroom. He looks up at them, tries to eke out a smile because he know he's been a difficult friend to deal with lately and he really does love and appreciate them. They smile back at him and then sink into sitting positions next to him on the floor. They scrunch together and silently read through the posts on Louis' Facebook page together, sometimes snorting at something funny that someone had written.

“I still can't believe he called Professor Lundberg a 'pervy, chicken-shit twat-head' in his instructor evaluation that one year,” Niall says, cracking up into laughter. “Not exactly his best, but it was still decent.”

Liam grins and shakes his head. “All because he told Harry that if he wanted a better grade on his Lord Byron paper he'd have to stop by his office for a 'long and hard discussion'. Christ.”

Harry bites down on his lip, unable to hide his smile. He remembers that, of course. And he remembers how Louis turns possessive in the oddest situations even though he's not really that type of person and their relationship isn't really that type of partnership. The thing is, Louis' too confident in himself and he knows that the people he cherishes the most are too tightly wound around his finger to ever stray too far from him. Just another frustratingly endearing facet of Louis Tomlinson. The smile on Harry's face disappears as quickly as it'd appeared.

“It's been over a month,” he murmurs. “That's too long for a good outcome.”

Silence prevails once more. Harry feels like he's killed a potentially positive interaction with his best mates but again, he finds it difficult to muster up any contrition. Liam reaches over and closes the laptop, letting it settle with a click. Niall gets to his feet and disappears from the room; a few seconds later there's a tinkling of glass in the kitchen then the faucet being turned on. Liam scratches at his scalp, then lets his hand drop down to the back of his neck.

“I'm not going to sit here and try to cheer you up by just saying whatever sounds most optimistic,” he says. “We're beyond that. I don't need to do that because you're my best mate and I don't want to do that to you.”

Harry nods and oddly enough, feels _comforted_ by Liam's words. Because he's in the state of mind where some sugar-coated, encouraging falsity is enough to make him rip his hair out in agitation. He'd rather be told that yes, there's a good chance that Louis' lying dead out in some remote patch of wilderness somewhere or something just as awful, then be told that Louis'll probably be found and it's just a matter of time. He's beginning to feel a connection with all those parents who show up on TV begging for their children to come home or for whoever has them to let them go – a sense of crushing hope for a happy ending mixed in with that oft-proven knowledge that happy endings are rare in these cases.

“Thanks, Li,” he mumbles some time later.

Niall comes into the room then and sits back down, empty-handed and a little more relaxed. Harry thinks he sees some redness around his eyes but he's not sure; for being one of the more expressive out of the five of them, Niall is also the least likely to allow people to see his weaknesses. It's like he doesn't fluctuate beyond the safety of really, really happy and moderately content. Harry thinks that he sort of wants to see Niall cry. Everybody cries. 

The front door opens and they all go still, as if they think it's someone other than Zayn coming into the flat. They listen as keys are dropped onto the table and a pair of shoes are kicked off against a wall, followed by the soft padding of feet coming down the hallway. He has to pass Harry's room to get to his so there's no way that he doesn't catch a glimpse of the three of them sitting huddled together on the floor next to the bed. He stops, of course, and just stands in the hallway looking at them.

“Hi.” Zayn blinks slowly; it's like he doesn't even recognize them. “What're you all doing?”

Harry stays silent and just stares at Niall's foot. There are little pizzas stitched onto his socks and he wants to shake his head and laugh. 

Liam answers for them all. “Just hanging out. Wanna join?”

Harry can practically _feel_ hesitation and confusion radiating off of Zayn. He comes into the room slowly, dragging his feet a little. He doesn't sit immediately, but looks down at the floor like he's not sure where he's most welcome. Liam pats the space next to him on the right and Zayn goes over without a word. They all sit there for a while, Niall's breathing the loudest sound in the room. Harry wants this to feel reassuring but it just feels like another juncture in his tumble down the rabbit hole, another meaningless flash of scenery.

“What've you been up to all day?” Liam asks, and it's obvious that he's speaking to Zayn.

After some more reluctance, Zayn says, “Was over at Jay's.”

Maybe he should feel angry, Harry thinks, that _Zayn_ is the one who frequents Louis' family home the most often. But in truth, it's pointless to even feel that way. The very thought of having to walk around that house looking at photos of baby Louis and toddler Louis and preteen Louis and teenage Louis and adult Louis is enough to make him nauseous. He doesn't want to be there. So it doesn't really matter if Zayn does because it's really not taking anything away from Harry in the end.

“How's she then?” Liam asks.

“Fine.” It's a surprise when Zayn continues and says, “She gave me this.”

Something falls into Harry's lap and he tears his blurry gaze away from Niall's feet to look at it. It's a long white envelope with nothing on it except for his name in elegant cursive. It reminds him of their first years of uni and the care packages Jay would send Louis with his name and address printed so neatly on the beige wrapping paper. He traces his finger over his name and waits for Zayn to explain before he opens it. 

Zayn says, “She said that you don't have to, but she thinks it'd be good for you.”

Harry untucks the flap and gently slides the slip of paper from inside (he already knows what it is just by the feel of it). He turns it around like he's a game show host about to reveal the correct answer to a hushed and tense audience; Niall and Liam press in closer to get a look. It's a plane ticket with his name on it and the destination listed as Melbourne, Australia. It's not surprising. He should've known this was coming eventually. 

“It's for Friday,” he mumbles.

“Yeah,” is all Zayn says.

Today is Wednesday.

*****

Australia is bloody _hot_ but that's to be expected. It's their summer, technically.

Harry drags himself through the doors of the airport and waits at the designated area for the shuttle bus that'll take him into the city. The hotel he's staying at is one in some generic chain that isn't known for its luxury but at least doesn't double as a cockroach lodging. Not that it should matter; he's supposed to be wandering around the city, looking for clues like a wannabe Sherlock Holmes. It's funny, he thinks – Louis would be the best Holmes. He's clever and eccentric enough. Harry doesn't think he'd be much of a Watson himself, but he could definitely be Louis' Mrs. Hudson.

The hotel is just as he'd expected. He doesn't bother looking around or going through the toiletry samples in the bathroom like he would've before. He just drops his bag off, lies on the bed for an entire hour staring up at the ceiling and listening to the traffic outside, then gets to his feet and grabs his wallet and sunglasses. The hotel lobby is swarming with guests either checking in late or heading out for dinner and he nearly knocks over a little girl in his haste (he imagines Louis shaking his head at him and making a snide comment about how Harry would be a poor excuse of a father).

Melbourne is … well, a _city_ , if Harry has to be perfectly honest. It has noises and smells and different accents and diversity and tourists and people scurrying about and – it is and isn't exactly like Manchester. The first thing he does is walk around aimlessly until he finds Eureka Skydeck 88. He pays the ticket and then rides the lift up, surrounded by squealing children and camera flashes. He doesn't bother sticking around for the educational facts or any of that; he just looks down at the city as if he'll somehow spot Louis amongst all the moving dots, then rides the lift back down with another group of loud families.

He eats a sandwich at some tiny cafe tucked away in a surprisingly busy alley (Louis wouldn't be able to keep from sneering the word 'hipster' if he was here) and then asks around until he finds the bar that Louis had been last seen in. It's ten o'clock by the time he gets there, and there's a line of people waiting to get in. Under different circumstances he'd feel awkward and weird standing there alone but mostly he feels nothing but a bit of impatience because he's not here to have fun and get trashed but he's here to complete a mission and that's to go in, look around the place as if it means anythings, then leave with some newly discovered knowledge about Louis' whereabouts. 

He's not deluded; he knows he'll step right back out into the muggy Australian night with no more than he came in with.

*****

Zayn picks him up at Manchester Airport with a bright green sign leant up against his legs that reads, “Welcome Home, Harry!” in smudged writing that Harry recognizes as Niall's. They walk out to Zayn's car in silence, Harry shivering a bit in the England chill and Zayn puffing away on a fag with a practiced ease. They're halfway home before Harry decides that he should say something.

“You'd be the Watson to Louis' Holmes, you know.”

Zayn blinks once, twice then smiles. “The only reason you know anything about Sherlock Holmes is because of me and that uni class I had to take last year.”

Harry chuckles. “Yeah, won't deny it.”

“Why'd I be Watson, then?” Zayn asks, rolling down the window an inch so he can light up another smoke. “Am I as attractive as Jude Law?”

“Louis' the brains and the charm but without you he wouldn't have his trusty best mate to lean on, yeah?” Harry says. “And you're more attractive than Jude Law, if I'm being honest.”

Zayn laughs and the sound of it loosens the lead ball in Harry's gut just a bit. 

“So I'm the sidekick who's not nearly as brilliant but at least maintains some trustworthiness?”

Harry turns Zayn's words over in his head before he blurts out, “Maybe Liam would be Watson, actually.”

*****

Three months after Louis' disappearance, Harry's cell lights up with a call from Jay. He hesitates at first; after his trip to Melbourne they hadn't spoken much as there wasn't much to say to each other. He knows that Jay worries about him but also understands that he's stable enough and will always be stable enough, even if Louis never comes home. Because that's the way he is; capable of bending with the punches and accepting the shitty parts of life, but also unable to pretend that he's anything more than cognizant of reality. He doesn't think that he'll ever be the person left behind who moves on and looks back with a maudlin fondness on that person he used to know and love.

He picks up right before the call goes to voicemail. 

“Hi, Jay.”

“Harry.”

There's something off in Jay's voice. She's crying, that much is obvious, but just in speaking his name she sounds distressed.

“What's going on?” Harry asks, getting off the couch and onto his feet.

Zayn's at the table sketching with his head down in concentration but looks up when Harry speaks.

“They've found him. They found Louis.”

And she's crying harder now – sobbing, really – and he can't tell whether she's happy or sad or both or nothing at all. Her words don't explain anything, not anything that really points to any specific conclusion. His heart has surely stopped in his chest and his vision is starting to go fuzzy and white around the edges. _You will not pass out, Harry Styles. You've been waiting for this._ He can hear Louis in the back of his head, laughing in that sharp, taunting way of his that somehow had never hurt Harry, only made him grin like a right idiot. He sucks in a breath when Zayn puts a hand on his shoulder. Back to reality.

In the steadiest voice he can muster, he asks, “Where's he been?”

\----------------------------------------------------------

  
_No-one round here's good at keeping their eyes closed_  
 _The sun's starting to light up when we're walking home_  
 _Tired little laughs, gold-lie promises, we'll always win at this_  
 _I don't ever think about death_  
 _It's alright if you do, it's fine_  
 _We gladiate but I guess we're really fighting ourselves_  
 _Roughing up our minds so we're ready when the kill time comes_  
 _Wide awake in bed, words in my brain,_  
 _"Secretly you love this do you even wanna go free?"_  
 _Let me in the ring, I'll show you what that big word means._

**Author's Note:**

> So this is obviously an ambiguous/open ending so however you want it to end, that's how it ends (I know, totally frustrating, yeah?) Hope you all enjoyed it at least a little! The song this story uses is Glory and Gore by Lorde.


End file.
